Dramatic Play…….Fairytales - 4 Year Old Class

January 30, 2017, 08:30 AM

The children in our 4 Year Old class have spent a great deal of time in dramatic play, from playing with the babies to acting out their own play which normally ends up in the book corner on the cozy mat and pillows.

We decided to enhance this play by reading some traditional fairytales to see if the children were interested in creating the story and finally acting it out. The hands went up as we asked who would like to act out Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This story has a lot of repetition which allows the children to be able to remember what to say. It also teaches children basic concepts of big, medium and small.

Dramatic play develops children's imagination as well as giving them confidence to speak and listen in front of an audience or to one another. It helps children not to be impulsive because if they are playing a role of the baby bear they will need to wait till papa and mama bear have had a turn saying their part.

Mary, Isabelle and Huxley take on the role of being the three little bears.

After discussing and deciding who was going to be which bear the children go over to the table to pretend to eat their porridge. Huxley took the role of being Daddy Bear so he stands in front of the big bowl, Isabelle is Mama Bear and she is eating from the medium size bowl and Mary is the Baby Bear and she is eating from the small bowl.

Again the children seem to know which chair to choose to sit on based on the size bear they are playing.

Goldilocks is lying on the pillows and without audience or myself prompting, Taylor starts lying on the big pillow and then over to the medium and finally on the small pillow.

The children had so much fun with acting out Goldilocks and the Three Bears that we decided to make our houses for the story of the Three Little Pigs.

We began by painting the three houses.

The children are learning to paint inside the black lines to make a brick house.

Arianna is painting the house of sticks, she seems to be working in one area of the cardboard. I wonder if she thinks she needs to work her way down, or if she has a plan in mind.